Knoxville children's book author returns to his Huntsville elementary school to share life lessons

David Moon, author of "Thoughts Are Things," shares his book and talks with students at Rolling Hills Elementary where he was a student in the 1970s. (Courtesy photo)

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – The author of a new children's book traveled back to his own elementary school to share wisdom and life lessons he's learned over the years.

David Moon, author of "Thoughts Are Things" spoke to children at Rolling Hills Elementary last week about their goals and how writing down their aspirations can help turn dreams into reality.

The Knoxville, Tenn. money manager and former University of Tennessee football player started jotting down life lessons he wanted his now teenage twins to know as they grew older and turned those notes into a collection of daily devotionals for elementary and middle school-aged children. The thoughts he wrote down and placed on the kitchen counter before heading off to work turned out to be the book that was recently named winner of the 2014 National Indie Excellence Book Award for Juvenile Inspiration.

"They were just notes that I wrote for them every morning," Moon said. "I never thought I was writing a book, I was just trying to get some things down for them to learn."

In a note in the bottom corner of each page, Moon includes the four sentences he started sharing with his kids at an early age.

"I am smart, happy and healthy. My parents love me. God has given me many gifts," he writes. "I can do anything I want to if I make a plan, concentrate and work toward it every day."

"There's an awful lot of obvious and some not so obvious symbolism in the artwork," Moon said of the illustrations done by sisters Bora and Jona Shehu.

In a devotional on giving, a child is seen sharing a boomerang with a friend. The same devotional also celebrates the birthday of Bill Gates, well known for the generous giving efforts of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Lessons on love, hard work, behavior, and happiness are some of the themes within the book. There's also a devotional about not having the power to keep a bird from pooping on your head.

"Life isn't about what happens to you. Life is about how you react to what happens to you. A bird poops on your head, you gonna leave it there? You gonna go to school the next day and show it to everybody? No, you're going to wipe it off," he said. "That reading is on the birthday of Seth Wheeler, the inventor of toilet paper. So there's a lot of little stuff like that in there."